December, 2018

• 3 December

  Facebook uses ‘WhatsApp phones’ to tap next emerging market

  

  Bloomberg One recent afternoon in the Indian city of Pune, a 35-year-old mason named Om Prakash Gaekwad gets a crash course in technology. He watches a street-corner skit explaining the virtues of WhatsApp’s messaging service and Reliance Jio’s wireless network. He then climbs aboard a truck to find out how to set them up. Half an hour later, he’s made ...

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• 3 December

  Volkswagen, Tesco in pact on British e-car charging rollout

  

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG and Tesco Plc plan to build the UK’s largest vehicle-charging network spanning 2,500 bays across some 600 stores in the next three years, even as buyers have so far stayed on the fence and economic fallout from Brexit is difficult to predict. Customers will be able to charge their electric and plug-in hybrid cars using a 7-kilowatt ...

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• 3 December

  DHL’s ‘robots’ to meet e-comm demand

  

  Bloomberg Worldwide delivery service DHL is deploying artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles and product-picking robots at its warehouses in North America to help handle the surge in e-commerce demand. The US unit of Deutsche Post AG will spend $300 million on its plan to equip 350 of its 430 facilities with new technology that includes autonomous trolleys that shadow human workers ...

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• 3 December

  Amazon letting Apple Music onto Alexa home speakers

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. opened up its popular home speakers to Apple Inc.’s music service, a new step in the nascent cooperation between the two tech rivals. Beginning from December 17, Apple Music will be available on Amazon’s Echo devices, according to a statement on Amazon’s blog. Music has always been one of Alexa’s most popular features, Amazon said. And Apple’s ...

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• 3 December

  Fed jumps off a predictable path of interest-rate hikes

  

  Bloomberg Federal Reserve officials have stepped off a predictable path of interest-rate increases and are signalling to investors a hard truth about relying on increasingly contradictory economic data: There are no easy answers anymore. It’s going to be choppy. It’s going to bring more surprises. And it may get rough on those trying to track the central bank’s strategy. A ...

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• 3 December

  Danske charges raise questions on risk of sanctions breach

  

  Bloomberg As Danske Bank A/S is investigated for money laundering, a key question remains whether it was used by anyone on US sanctions lists. Denmark’s biggest bank has so far said there’s no evidence sanctions were breached. But it’s also acknowledged that the risk can’t be ruled out. Last week, Danish police filed the first criminal charges against Danske, zeroing ...

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• 3 December

  RBA could keep rates on hold beyond 2020

  

  Bloomberg The Australian central bank’s (RBA) lackluster wage-growth outlook indicates it may have to leave interest rates on hold even beyond 2020. Annual pay rises won’t get above around 2.75 percent for at least the next two years, the Reserve Bank projects. That’s about 1 percentage point less than the wage growth levels achieved when it last began raising rates ...

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• 3 December

  Pakistan devalues rupee for fifth time this year

  Bloomberg Pakistan devalued its currency for the fifth time this year as the nation negotiates a bail-out with the International Monetary Fund. The rupee fell 3.8 percent to 139 per dollar at close from 133.9. The rupee has erased more than a fifth of its value to become the worst performer in Asia this year, according to a basket of ...

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• 3 December

  Asian central banks are in for a quieter year in 2019

  

  Bloomberg For most of Asia’s central banks, things should be a whole lot less exciting next year, and that’s a good thing. As the US Federal Reserve looks towards topping off its interest-rate hike cycle, even those policy makers in the region who haven’t followed the tightening path should be in position to keep policy steady, according to Deyi Tan, ...

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• 3 December

  American Air pilots seek more Max training after Lion crash

  

  Bloomberg American Airlines Group Inc. pilots want the carrier to offer more training on Boeing Co.’s 737 Max to better understand new anti-stall software, after a preliminary report on an Indonesia plane crash suggested that aircraft malfunctions left aviators overwhelmed. The Allied Pilots Association made the request after what the union said was an unprecedented meeting with Boeing officials this ...

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